


Love Like Yours Will Surely Come My Way

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Nightmares, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for foofighter0234 over on LJ, as a belated birthday gift! For a prompt of <i>filming the sequel, keeping the romance going</i>, which turned into…miscommunication, angst, comfort, and awkwardly falling in love, and then doing it all over again, with happy endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Like Yours Will Surely Come My Way

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some spoilers for the comics version of "Days of Future Past". Also, in Venice, Michael stops at the basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, if you want to know. Oh, and the nightmare that James has is one of my own.
> 
> And apparently this is a series now! Based on prompts from friends; anyone else have any requests? Just ask!

_every day seems a little longer_

_every way love’s a little stronger_

_come what may, do you ever long for_

_true love from me?_

 

 

The thing about James is…well. Not just one thing. Many.

The thing about James is that he _is_ many things, often all at once, and always complicated. Electric layers of contradictions and curiosities.

Michael’s always been curious. Intrigued by contradictions. It’s his downfall.

James smiles at the world, joins in every single practical joke on set, and strikes up conversations with all the new interns, chatting easily with them until they feel perfectly at home. James sometimes vanishes, and leaves Michael panicking for half an hour, until he’s able to track down floppy hair and oceanic eyes behind a currently-unoccupied prop-storage trailer, James sitting alone on the ground and idly filling out a crossword puzzle and playing with sun-warmed grass.

Michael’d hesitated, on finding him that first time, not wanting to disturb the idyll; James’d glanced up, and then grinned and been on his feet, bouncing over in the direction of Matthew’s distant grumbles, crossword and pencil vanished somewhere, and that luxurious voice saying, cheerfully, “Come on, we wouldn’t want to keep him waiting!” Michael, bemused, could only trail along, blinking, in the tides.

James rescues him in interviews, when Michael gives unthinkingly honest answers about how much he’d enjoy having a tail and the interviewer looks at him as if he’s potentially crazy and James jumps right in to play along. James enjoys the interviews, and makes everyone love him right back, ridiculous answers and endearing awkward lip-licks and all, open and candid and unhesitatingly generous about sharing credit.

James isn’t as open or candid as everyone believes. James doesn’t talk about anything personal, on camera or off. Favorite music, sure; best superpower, absolutely; character motivations, at the drop of a pen. But never about himself. And no one ever asks, blinded by that smile and the friendliness that radiates like sunbeams, if sunbeams could come with rumpled hair and a mischievously enticing Scottish accent.

On the subject of accents, James saying Michael’s name, or _yes_ , or _more_ , will never fail to send lightning-bolts of pure desire down Michael’s spine. He’d never thought he had much of a partiality regarding accents, but James sounds like golden Highland whisky and fuzzy wool coziness and unexpected tingling spice. Michael’s pretty much ruined as far as impartiality goes, now.

James, despite managing to convince the world at large that he’s adorable and sweet and earnest, has a surprisingly dirty mouth. He tends to say “fuck” when things go wrong on set, among other words. He also spots any potential innuendo in Michael’s frequent unthinking double entendres before anyone else can, and either cracks up or runs with the joke or both at once.

James isn’t shy in bed. He’s enthusiastic and excited and determined that his partner should experience every possible drop of pleasure, and when James is determined, well. There’s no arguing against that, even if Michael were capable of speech at those moments.

James never asks for him to reciprocate. James loudly and undeniably appreciates that turn of events when he does, but James never makes the request, on his own.

Never _had_ made the request. Past tense. Never will, now. That contradiction, that complexity, will never be explained. Not to him.

The emptiness aches. Physical. Like a missing limb. Like his limbs, missing James entwined with them.

James is all these things, beautiful and genuinely surprised to be called beautiful and impish and kindhearted and generous to everyone except himself. And now he isn’t Michael’s, not anymore.

Standing in the airport, hoping against all rationality that he’ll look up and see blue eyes coming to find him, he remembers that night. And that following morning. They burn and sear and scorch tattoos into his bones, albeit in different ways.

James’d been in his bed, two nights ago. Reluctantly so. Not reluctant about the sex, not at all—James’s enthusiasm had been very sufficiently demonstrated in that regard, and Michael’s entire body, despite the resultant exhaustion, had heroically summoned a flicker of arousal at the recollection. They’d been having the enthusiastic sex, on and off, for weeks; not immediately, not upon first meeting, but very shortly thereafter, after Michael’d kept finding his gaze drawn to unruly hair like a magnet and James’d caught him looking and _hadn’t_ made a comforting joke or scolded him for getting attached or run away from the idea.

James had, instead, quietly taken his hand, as Michael sat on cold damp sand trying to forget that he’d just watched blue eyes cloud over with assumed pain. Pulled him up, and then not let go, so they ended up pressed together, shoulders to hips, breathless. Had murmured, words brushing Michael’s skin like a kiss, “I’ll come over. Your room. Tonight.” Michael’d only been able, dumbly, to nod.

He’d panicked, wondering what to wear, or not wear, and what to offer—food? drinks? or would that seem as if he wanted to get James drunk, or worse, needed the courage himself?—when James arrived. In the end, it hadn’t mattered; James’d knocked while Michael was still standing barefoot and shirtless and flustered in front of the mini-bar, and he’d opened the door and seen blue eyes and a smile and suddenly the world’d calmed itself into an oasis just for them.

Gazing back at that memory, he wants to smile again, and then to cry.

James’d been so _perfect_. Like all of Michael’s fantasies come true.

He’d tried to return the favor, in what had to be terribly clumsy and unpracticed fashion. James had smiled more brightly, and kissed him, after. “Feeling more secure, yet?”

“I…think so. Was that…are you…”

“Good. And good.” James’d hopped out of bed, paused to kiss him again, expression wry and sincere and another emotion Michael’d not recognized at the time. Only belatedly. Slowly. Surprise. “I’ll see you in the morning, all right?”

“You…you don’t have to go. You could stay.”

“You don’t want me to,” James proclaimed, flippantly, “I steal blankets and talk in my sleep, I’m a terrible bedmate, and you’ve got a four am call time, right?”

“Yes…but…”

Those eyes’d softened, looking back, as James opened the door. “Michael. Don’t worry. I’ll come back tomorrow. You were—that _was_ good. I promise. Completely.”

“You…completely promise?”

“That, too. If I’m awake when you leave, I’ll walk down and get coffee with you. If I don’t answer, I’m enjoying my extra two hours of sleep and imagining you suffering, okay?”

“You…thank you for the offer. If not the suffering. I’ll knock _very_ loudly.”

“Yes,” James said, cheerfully, “you can be quite loud, I noticed, and you didn’t have to call me ‘oh god yes’ quite so often, not that I didn’t approve,” and then slipped out the door before Michael could stop spluttering indignantly.

Michael hadn’t really intended to knock. James did have a later call time, yes, but he’d also be on set later, into the night. And Michael couldn’t interrupt his rest, no matter how badly he wanted to see those eyes, touch those freckles, again.

The door across the hall’d opened as he stepped out of his own. James, blinking, hair standing up in all directions, fuzzy sweater over pajama pants, had looked at him, yawned wordlessly, and then fit himself neatly under Michael’s arm for the trek down the hall and into the elevator and out to find the early-morning continental breakfast display. Michael’d held onto him, not speaking either, too astounded by affection and delight.

He’d not wondered, that first morning, why James’d been awake. Hadn’t occurred to him.

These days, he knows.

He’d asked James to stay on other nights, other occasions. James always laughed, made excuses, fabricated jokes about his own inability to share blankets and mattress space, and left.

Lonely, confused, wanting acres of freckles beside him the way he’d never wanted anything else in his life, he’d asked once more, during the press tour, close to the end of everything and desperate and promising himself that this’d be the last time, if James said no and didn’t feel the same then he, Michael, would simply have to accept that and go on living with a hole in his heart.

James, naked and rumpled and flushed from the much-needed shower, had started to answer. Stopped. Bit his lip. “I shouldn’t.”

Shouldn’t. Not can’t, or won’t.

“Why not?”

“I’m not…I don’t…all right. Yes.”

“What—really? Yes?”

“Really yes. It’s a terrible idea, but yes.”

“Why—”

Why is it a terrible idea, he’d meant to ask. James, intentionally or not, took the question another way. “Why am I going to stay? Here, with you? Because I want to. I’m going to do this because I want to. I want to see you when I fall asleep. And wake up with you, in the morning. And maybe—If you don’t mind, I mean.”

“James,” Michael’d said, patiently, “ _I_ asked _you_ to stay,” and those tropical-water eyes had, after a moment, laughed.

The first part of the night had been wonderful. James seemed tense, at first, but had relaxed, by degrees, when Michael’s arms stayed around him and didn’t let go. Michael’d breathed in the scent of that now-recognizable apple shampoo, and tangled their legs together, and drifted off, secure.

Deep in the night, he’d awakened abruptly. Had lain there in the darkness, staring at the night, trying to figure out why.

He’d heard it again. A small, labored, little sound of fear.

James had moved away from him, at some point. Was lying near the side of the bed, not moving, but not moving in a way that suggested not sleep but petrifying dread.

One more shivering tiny sound, and Michael said “James?” aloud, voice shaking even though he couldn’t quite have explained why.

James _was_ asleep, he realized, leaning over. Very much so. Caught in the grip of some fragmented dream. And whimpering, faintly, the frightened gasps of someone attempting to not make any noise at all.

“James,” he said, a bit more loudly.

The grey-black light of pre-dawn prowled around and outlined all the hair, the tightly closed eyes, the ineffective blankets, and Michael hated all the shadows, just for that instant.

He’d started to reach for James, to wake him up, to do something, anything, to keep those pained sounds from needing to escape any longer; and James had breathed in, nearly a scream, and woken himself up.

For a second they just hovered there, looking at each other, Michael awkwardly poised to touch the closest shoulder, James visibly shoving back emotions and gathering the tattered shreds of composure. That process hurt to watch, and Michael swallowed and lowered his hand and whispered, “Are you all right?”

A blink, a breath, and James’d sat up, shaking, knees pulled up beneath the fluffy top blanket. Dropped his head to rest on folded hands. Michael’d wondered whether he was trying to make himself smaller, unnoticeable, and if so, why.

The moonlight, with the change of position, could sneak in bashfully to join them, through not-quite-closed curtains. It sidled up to freckles and sheet-folds like a wary cat, not certain whether it’d be safe to settle down.

“James,” he’d said, sitting there beside the tucked-up ball of arms and legs and hair, “please talk to me.”

“I’m fine. Just a dream. This is why I don’t generally share a bed with anyone, you understand. Not very fair to the other person. I could positively murder someone for a cigarette, about now."

Wordlessly, Michael’d glanced around for his, meaning to offer; James caught the gesture, shook his head. “I’d never go back to sleep. Anyway, you only have two left, I noticed earlier. You don’t have to worry. I swear I’m fine.”

“You aren’t—” Michael’d started, stopped, shaken his head. “How can I help?”

Blue eyes caught moonlight, lifting in surprise. “How can you—no one’s ever asked me that. Not like that.”

“…really?”

“True. Not that I’ve let a lot of people—I mean, it’s not—I’ve gotten the what’s-wrong, and the it’s-only-a-dream, and the consolation sex—”

“If that helps, we could try. Does this happen frequently, then?”

“I might not say no. Just curious, though…no one’s ever asked exactly that way. Not whether you can help, but how.”

As if he’d not want to help. As if he’d sit next to James, in the bone-cold night, and not try anything, everything, to make those shaken eyes happy again.

He would try anything, for James. Because he’s in love with James.

That realization—oh, of course, this is what it means, to be in love—had left him giddy and speechless and oddly content, like the last puzzle piece snapping into place, finding where it belonged all along.

James, sitting very still, had breathed in and out like a man with broken bones, careful and shallow and precise. And hadn’t moved away, when Michael’d put a cautious arm around his shoulders. “A dream, you said. Um. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know,” James said, to his shoulder, leaning into the embrace. “Honestly. I just—I don’t know.”

“Okay. That’s…okay, James, whatever you want. I’m here. All right?”

James leaned against him more closely. Didn’t quite look up. “Did you mean it? About wanting the consolation sex? We can if you want.”

“James…” He’d used one finger to tip that chin up, in the forgiving moonlight. “I want you, I always want you, but no. Not now. I want you to tell me what you want. From me. Please.”

The chin trembled, slightly, at his touch. Michael moved the hand. James looked down. Michael uttered, mentally, several choice profanities, mostly directed at himself. James didn’t need more pressure. More demands.

The blue eyes remained in shadow. But that spectacular voice, the one that Michael wanted to hear forever, offered, tentatively, “Hold me?”

In the silver-smoke wash of the compassionate night, he had. And had felt like a hero, when James fell asleep, dreamlessly, in his arms.

 

He’s holding his mobile phone, now. Passersby flow and split around him and mutter curses about bodies blocking their way. None of those passersby are James. Of course not. Of course they wouldn’t be. He knows that, too.

 

In the end, it’d only taken one moment of Michael’s unconsidered honesty, in one last interview, to rip his newborn invincibility to shreds.

It’d been a solo interview, himself and the journalist, no James to help him smile or nudge him into concluding an otherwise endless answer or figure out what he’d actually meant to say. The last one of the day. And he’d been extremely tired, and the lights were very bright, overhead.

The question was a serious one, about the difficulty of the profession, shaking off demanding roles and powerful emotions. Michael’d nodded, and then said, truthfully, not pausing for thought, “No, not really, I mean, when I’m done with a project I’m…done, I suppose? You have to move on; you can’t carry all that baggage with you to the next character, that wouldn’t be fair…”

“So you won’t have any trouble moving on? Leaving Erik behind?”

“Well…no, I don’t think so, I mean, you have to, right? It’s sort of…you do the job and then you go on to the next job, and you focus on that? New people, a new dynamic, it’s a whole different challenge, really, when you think about it, and you have to go into the next project with your whole heart, you can’t leave anything behind…” Awkwardly endless answers again, he thinks now, remembering, loathing. He never does quite know when to stop. What if the interviewer’s waiting for more?

They’d only had limited time, though, and the questions spun off into a discussion of challenges on this film set, and scenes that were the most fun, and whether they’ll come back and do a sequel, the usual fluff, and Michael’s brain’d been running on autopilot by the time they’d done. The thought _had_ vaguely crossed his mind that he should call James, he’d not-quite-promised earlier that he would check in when done, but he’d made the simple earthshattering mistake of sitting down on his hotel bed while changing, and fallen asleep there, with his phone cradled against his ear.

James hadn’t called him. Hadn’t texted. He’d studied the screen, puzzled, too many hours later. Wandered, frowning, out of his hotel room and down to breakfast, where Kevin and Jennifer and January were gathered in an intense huddle over toast and eggs.

They all looked up, in perfect synchronicity, when he walked in. Then went back to muttering.

“Good morning,” he’d said, determined to be pleasant despite the growing confused dismay, “have you seen James?”

The expressions ranged from astonished to pitying to outright hostile, at that. Michael demanded, “What?” because now he was exasperated and the pity wasn’t helping.

“But,” Kevin admitted, finally, “we thought you knew. He left. Got an earlier flight, this morning. Didn’t say goodbye to anyone, actually, I had to find out from Matthew.”

“He _what?_ ”

“Michael…” Jennifer focused on her toast, as if it might jump in and answer for her. It’d refused, crunchily. “You know you were the last interview, last night…we were all down here, he was here, too…watching the tv…”

“The—the interview? What—”

“You don’t remember? Everything you said about moving on, not taking anything with you? About going on to the next project with your heart intact, or something stupid like that?”

“I—but I didn’t mean—I just meant the characters!”

“Well,” Kevin observed, through a sip of coffee, “I saw his face.”

And Michael’s world had disintegrated. Literally. A coming apart, of pieces that’d once fit together. That’d been beginning to fit together, gingerly, sweetly, hopefully. Gone, now.

Like James. Like his heart.

He’d called. Texted. Everything he could think of. James’s mobile phone had been off. Michael’d left a despairing voicemail, then called back and left one more, because he couldn’t think of the right words, and he was afraid he’d been crying.

He’d had to go to the airport, eventually. His own flight. Departing, whisking him away, into the future.

 

A random stranger bumps into him, glares, then looks into his face. Apologizes. Backs away.

Michael takes a deep breath. Texts James one final time: _getting on plane, won’t have phone for a bit, please call me anyway when you get this_. Then walks through the doors, on feet that don’t feel like his anymore.

James doesn’t answer. James continues to not answer, all of the apologies and the questions and the pleading text messages, the ones that say _I’m sorry_ and _I’m here whenever you want to talk_ and _I mean that_ and, eventually, _please just let me know you’re doing all right_. Days. Weeks. Every night before he goes to bed. Every morning he checks the phone.

That last one does get a three-word reply, hours later. _I’m all right_.

Michael sits on the edge of his bed and reads the words over and over again and hears them in his head in hundreds of different ways, from sarcastic to resigned, from exasperated to affectionate. After several failed attempts, he texts back, _Thank you_.

After an agonizing delay, the screen lights up again. _Feeling better?_

_James, I’m sorry._

_Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep. It’s 3am for you_.

James knows the time, where Michael is. The featureless hotel room suddenly feels a little more friendly, as those words shine up from the screen.

_Can I call you tomorrow?_

_Filming all day. Sorry_.

Another pause. Michael bites his lip. Digs toes into the stoic bulk of the mattress. He’ll need to be in Venice, the day after that, a film festival. Not enough _time_.

And then the phone tells him one more thing. _Don’t mind you texting though. Might not see it right away, but if you want_.

Michael hears himself breathe in, and puts one hand over his mouth, shakily.

 _Seriously go to bed now though, I’m not going to be responsible for you sleeping through your wake-up call. Anyway I have to run lines for next scene. Good night_.

Yes. Maybe, yes. _Good luck with the scene_ , he sends back, with clumsy fingers, and there’s no answer, but he’s not expecting one, so that’s okay, or something next door to okay, at least.

He falls asleep with his mobile phone in his hand, and James’s words etched into his heart.

 

He does text James, from Venice. _Quiet and not quiet here. Confusing city._

_?_

_Too many tourists. No cars. But lots of secret bridges. Sunlight on water. You would like it I think._

_Never actually been. Pictures?_

Michael sends him photos of mosaics, of gondolas, of the curving spans of arched stone and wood, of the violinist he comes across one evening playing snatches from _Carmina Burana_ to the stars and the water on a deserted walkway. Particularly daring, hidden among a series of glittering shots of the Doge’s Palace, one of himself, sitting on cool aged steps outside a sixteenth-century basilica.

James doesn’t answer for a while—it’s the middle of the night, for him—and Michael spends the whole day feeling the fizz and tingle of anticipation and dread at war beneath his skin. He walks around a lot. He can’t sit still.

_The church or the history?_

_What?_

_What you like about it. You look comfortable_.

Michael, in the middle of film-festival cocktails and conversation, leaves behind two well-known film producers and a studio head to duck out to the balcony, and answer. _Always liked churches. Peaceful._

_Never knew that._

_How’d you know what building it was?_

_Google,_ James admits. _I was curious. You were smiling_.

He is now, too. Probably too broadly. But he’s happy. James was curious. James was curious, because Michael was smiling.

Through snapshots and stained glass and distant rain, through farflung location shoots and messages and months, they talk. They become friends again, somewhere along the way. That’s not enough, it never will be, but it’s not silence. It’s not absence. Presence, instead, in each other’s lives.

 

The X-Men sequel’s finally announced, as it inevitably was going to be after the first film’s demonstrated success. Michael gets the phone call while standing in the middle of yet another interchangeable airport, waiting for his flight home to London, and then spends the entirety of said flight torn between jubilance about getting to play in that world, with James, again, and complete panic about having to play in that world—with James—again.

Eventually he decides that neither of those emotions apply. They’re friends. Again. Still. He’ll work alongside blue eyes and laugh when James does and maybe save a crossword puzzle for short freckled fingers to fill out, and he’ll take his cues, whatever they are, from how James treats him, whatever James wants. James deserves that. From a friend.

They’re meeting at the studio offices for the first script read-through, and it’s a summer day, the kind of late-summer day that painters would kill for, all golden light and clouds with personality, scampering across the sun, patterns of light and shade. Complexities, Michael thinks, and finds himself smiling back at them, wistfully.

He parks the bike and hops through the door, waves at Nicholas—who’s mournfully scowling at a vending machine and muttering dire words about peanut M&M’s—and turns a corner. And James is there.

Right there, in front of him. Turning around, too, as Michael’s footsteps approach. And—a fact which makes Michael’s heart, unaccustomed as it is to joy these days, skip a beat—he’s smiling.

Michael sees that smile, and the first words that tumble out of his mouth have to be, “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Both eyebrows go up, exaggeratedly incredulous. “Is there something I don’t know? It’s been all of five seconds, what on earth’ve you managed to do that you feel the need to apologize for?”

“James. No. What I said in the—in that interview. That wasn’t for you, that wasn’t about you, I was just tired and I was talking and I—I never meant I wanted to move on from you. I’m sorry.”

James blinks, breathes, recovers; tosses back, “No, it’s fine, it’s not as if I had any right to expect—we never even talked about what we were doing, you were right, so don’t worry. I probably should’ve called you first; sorry about that, I’m an idiot sometimes. Saw _Prometheus_ , by the way. Wasn’t sure whether I should congratulate you or laugh.”

Friendliness as teasing protection, as camouflage, as concealment: as always, as if that hadn’t been any momentary loss of equilibrium behind blue eyes at all. Michael’s heart aches. Each beat stabs his chest with broken glass.

“I was going to mock your hair, because, seriously, blond, but I can’t really mock anyone’s hair color, at this point.” James shrugs, waves a hand towards his own head. It’s a diversion, designed to get his audience to smile again; Michael, permanently spellbound, follows the gesture, and finally registers the silvering strands.

They should look out of place—James is younger than he is—but they don’t. They look playful. Weaving themselves in along the copper and brown. Comfortable there. And Michael, who’d once been able to touch James, too, is jealous. Of hair.

“Your hair,” his mouth says, without any input from his brain.

“My hair, yes. Can’t play young and adorable forever, can I.”

“But—James, you—you look good. I mean…really. You do.” True. Aside from the hair, which is mischievously begging for Michael’s fingers to run through it, James has put on weight, all around. Not fat, not at all, but more solid, somehow. More substantial. More truly _here_ , with him.

Michael puts his hands behind his back, in case his fingers decide to lunge for the hair on their own. It’s a distinct possibility.

He gets an _I-saw-that_ head-tilt, but James plainly opts not to say anything, only sticks his own hands in his pockets and grins. “So…you’ve been good? Heard you have a girlfriend, now?”

“Had,” Michael corrects, because he has to, and the grin fades. “Oh…sorry. Anything I can do?”

“No, it wasn’t—it was mutual. I mean the ending. Not serious anyway. Just, you know, fun, sort of.” Words’ve deserted him, the traitors. Everything he’s saying is true—it had been casual, and lighthearted, and good while it lasted—but what he’s not saying is even more true.

He could never have been in love with her. Not while the last person he thinks about, falling asleep in solitary hotel rooms, has a Scottish-velvet accent and eyes like the summer sky at dusk. Not when he awakens from dreams about freckled skin entwined with his, the little gasps, the soft noises, and stands under the scalding heat of his shower and wraps his hand around his own aching cock and _comes_ , remembering, imagining.

Not when his other dreams, the daydreams like companionable bruises, involve him miraculously traveling back in time, changing the past, holding out a hand in moonlight, saying the right words instead of the exact wrong ones under the unforgiving light of day.

He’s in love with James. He always will be. He knows that now. And he’s had his chance.

“Well,” James says, “anyway. If you need to talk, or get drunk, or just bemoan the general state of existence, I’m here.”

“Did you just use the word bemoan in a sentence? In the twenty-first century?”

“And I used it correctly. It’s okay, I know big words’re hard for you, I’ll buy you a dictionary next time I see you, so you can read your next film script…”

“Yes, well…we can’t all be anachronistic bibliophilic pygmy people, James.” Which gets James to laugh delightedly.

“I should object to the height-related part of that, you know. I’m only, what, three inches shorter than you? But you _loom_.”

“I’m good at looming. You’re fine with the other two adjectives, I take it.”

“Oh, definitely. Those were compliments. Speaking of time and being temporally dislocated, what d’you think of the script?”

“It’s not perfect, but I like it,” Michael says, honestly. James nods, thoughtful agreement, and the hair falls into his face, and the world feels so right, so perfect, the two of them in sync again, the way they’re always meant to be.

He’s missed James, missed this, so damn _much_.

James blinks, astonished. Michael replays the last few seconds in his head. Remembers, too belatedly, the difference between mental monologue and audible speech.

James licks his lips, shifts his weight, under the artificial hallway lights. There’s an different expression in those eyes now, a look Michael can’t recall ever having seen before.

“You just said—no, you did, I heard you—you wanted—you thought about me?”

He’s already doomed, the axe is falling either way, so he might as well go out with truthfulness. There are worse ends. “Every day.”

“You did miss me.” James takes a very small step forward. The light slides through his hair, highlighting all the silver. Otherworldly. Enthralling. “Michael…I missed you, too. Every day.”

The reprieve doesn’t sink in, for a second, and then it does: last-minute pardon, outflung lifeline, hope. He takes a step forward, too, because he can’t resist. The familiar cracked-sapphire eyes are watching his face, a little anxious, wistful, wondering, and not concealing any of those emotions from his sight.

“James,” he starts, and then Bryan Singer puts a head out of the meeting room and demands his actors’ presence in incontrovertible terms, and Jennifer Lawrence comes dashing down the hallway shouting apologies for being late, and Nicholas looks mournfully at the vending machine and gives it a final kick, and in the whirlwind they end up tugged away from each other and into the first reading of the day.

He catches those eyes, though, after they sit down. James, looking at him. And, very tentatively, offering another smile.

It _is_ a good script. A powerful story. The dystopian future world is genuinely plausible and frightening, and the time travel makes as much sense as time travel ever does, and the questions are serious ones: what would a person do, what might a hero be willing to do, to prevent such a future, given a second chance?

Second chances. The day just might be full of them. And he finds himself smiling again.

It’s not perfect, though, he and James had been correct about that. Too many new characters, introduced too quickly. Too few shades of grey in the depictions of both Erik and Charles. Not enough Erik-and-Charles, for that matter; he’s not just thinking that because he wants more scenes with James, though he does, and not only because James pushes him to be a better actor. Much of what makes the first movie enduringly powerful lies in that complicated and bittersweet relationship, and here it’s so understated that said relationship is practically nonexistent.

He makes notes to this effect on his script copy when he’s not required in a scene, alongside a tiny doodle of Bryan Singer with a tail, because tails _are_ cool, and also alongside a _very_ tiny heart with certain JM +  MF initials inside, which he will deny having ever drawn even under torture, because he is absolutely not a pre-teen girl with a desperate first love.

Well. Maybe he’s a little desperate. And he is in love.

The object of that love pauses during a speech about political repercussions of drastic action, and takes a sip out of his water bottle. His throat moves, as he swallows. When he goes back to talking, eyes all intent and completely in-character now, his lips remain shining and wet.

Michael tries not to whimper.

Someone kicks him under the table. After he recovers from the minor heart attack, he spots Jennifer grinning pointedly at him. _I don’t blame you_ , she mouths. Michael glares, and hides behind his script pages, until he stops alternately blushing and wanting to hiss back _hands off_.

Eventually it’s his turn again, though. And it’s one of his favorite scenes, actually, one of the most effective in the script. Future Erik’s great last stand, versus an army of robotic Sentinels. Sacrificing himself, to give the X-Men time, very literally. To let them finish the mission back to Charles Xavier, to the years in which Professor X is still alive and Erik isn’t left fighting a lopsided war alone.

He’d thought, reading that scene, that this was a love story, really, the way Erik would tell one: not with words, but with actions. Giving himself up for the dream of a better future. His own dream. Charles’s dream. The same, in the end. All of those motivations, yes. But, beneath all that, one profoundly simple truth: if Erik buys the X-Men enough time, they can go back and warn Charles, and Charles will _live_.

He finishes the last defiant words. It’s not a long speech; Erik’s too practical for that. A few lines. A smile, at that moment. And then he looks up.

Technically some other people have a line or two, to finish the scene, something about not letting him die for nothing.

Nobody says anything, though. They all just stare.

Bryan opens his mouth, then shakes his head, and closes it. One of the assistant directors says, very quietly, “Wow…” Somewhere at the end of the table, someone applauds. Jennifer bursts into tears.

“Um,” Michael says, and kind of wants to disappear behind the pages again. They’re all still _staring_. “Um…was that…okay? Or…”

“That was amazing,” Bryan says, looking at him as if he’s both miraculous and insane for doubting the fact. “Just…whatever emotion you’re channeling, please, please do that again on camera, okay? I think we all would…appreciate that, right?”

“I need more tissues,” Jennifer says.

“Okay, that’s probably appreciation…James? What do you think?”

And Michael realizes he’s holding his breath, that that’s _why_ he’s holding his breath, because James hasn’t said anything, yet, hasn’t even met his eyes.

“It was spectacular,” James says, “can I have a minute,” and then actually gets up and leaves, without waiting for anyone’s nod, which is so out of character that everyone in the room can only transfer the astounded stares to the door.

Michael shakes himself free of the shocked paralysis first because he has to, and then says, “I’m just going to—” and disentangles himself from his clinging chair and runs, not listening to any floundering replies.

 

James hasn’t in fact gone far, though he has made it outside; Michael finds him just beyond the side door, the one that’s not used much except by maintenance and locked-out interns. He’s leaning back against the wall as if one or both of them could use the assistance, and the clouds drift over the sun and trail patterns of shade across his face.

“James?”

“Of course you found me.”

“Of course I did. I always have, haven’t I?”

A near-smile, following the clouds. “More or less. How do you always know?”

“It’s my superpower.” He takes a step closer. “I like knowing where you are.”

James considers this for a minute in silence. “I like the quiet. Sometimes.” That might be a rejection of the intrusion, but it’s not; he knows James, or he’s starting to, at last, and this is an invitation, or something close enough to be accepted.

“I know you do.” One more step. This side of the building only has a small walkway, a path down to the parking lot, no view to speak of, only other flat studio walls. But that’s all right; there’s no one else there, in the world, just the two of them, and the sunlight, and the pale concrete. No one’s followed them out from inside, whether out of consideration or merely confusion about what to do next. Someone might come for them eventually, but until then, it’s just him, and James.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Do you…want my last cigarette?”

“I quit. Last year. Properly this time.”

“No wonder you look good,” Michael offers, “you’re probably in better shape than I am, now,” and spots that evanescent smile again, flickering through the clouds.

“Probably not. I also ended up on a diet. No bread. Bread makes you fat. Except not you, because you couldn’t be overweight if you tried.”

He ignores the second part of this, because that’s just James putting up walls, and James’s defensive walls have lots of spines. Michael has the memory of soft-voiced words— _I missed you, too_ —as armor, and that’s enough to blunt the edges. He says, keenly angry on James’s behalf, “Someone told you you were fat?”

And James looks at his expression, and then, inexplicably, the corners of that mouth quirk up, as if he’s wanting to laugh. “You look like you’re planning to commit grievous acts of bodily harm…”

“I might be. Who told you that?”

“It’s not important. Not as if it’s not been said before. Anyway, I cheated. On the diet.” A one-shouldered shrug, repositioning. “Just so you know.”

He could say so many things, then. Mentally tests out, and discards, several responses. Goes with, “You have no idea how happy I was. When I saw you. Today. You look _good_ , James. You look like—you look beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Both eyebrows lift, sweeping startlement. Michael prepares to defend that statement, to the death if need be. But James doesn’t argue. Only smiles, that surfacing flare of private wonder, one more time.

There’s a pause, while the summer afternoon stretches out around them. It’s not uncomfortable.

“That was you,” James says, at last, to the clouds, to the sunlight, “dying for me.”

“I—yes, all right, sort of, that was Erik’s decision about Charles, but—”

“No.” James shuts his eyes, leans against the worn and cracking wall, tips his face towards the sun. “Don’t. We both know better than that. Your characters are always you, partly, if not completely, just like mine’re me, and that was you, in there. Dying. For me.”

Michael, breathless, leans against the wall beside him, one shoulder propping up the universe. Admits, because he can’t lie and anyway the truth comes easier without blue eyes gazing at him, “Yes.”

“Yes.” James puts both hands over his face, for a second. Inhales, through freckled fingers. Almost laughs. Michael’s not sure how to read that reaction.

“We don’t have enough scenes together. In this one. We should—we work best together. Or I think we do. You—”

“We do. Work best together.” James still isn’t looking at him. Michael keeps talking. “Like Erik and Charles, right? Always their best together. If they could just—but that’s what this one’s about, isn’t it, sort of? Seeing how horrible the future can be, if they aren’t?”

“Erik and Charles…Erik dies, you know. That’s kind of why we’re out here now.”

“Erik dies in the future. Future Erik dies. Present-day Erik’s still alive. And the future can be different, now that they know. Please—can you look at me? Maybe?”

James considers this request. Then turns slightly, enough to face him, and drops the hands. Those eyes burn bluer than the sky, overhead. “Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember…You asked me, once. About the nightmares. And I didn’t tell you, then.”

“You—you didn’t, you don’t have to—if you don’t want—”

“It’s not as if I even have a good excuse.” James blinks, looks down, looks up again, tentative but committed, now, Michael thinks. Hopes.

“I had a decent childhood, I mean, not perfect, but who gets perfect, anyway…” A small shrug, or a movement that would’ve been a shrug, if James weren’t trying to hold up a building with his own weight. “My grandparents always loved me. And my sister. We had a good home, you know?”

Grandparents. Not parents. Michael bites his lip. Then says, quietly, because he can hear it in James’s voice, “They were your home.”

“In so many ways. That dream…I told you I’ve had it for years. True. It’s pretty much always the same. I wake up—in my dream I wake up, I mean—and there’s someone else in the room. A man. Next to the bed. And he just watches me. Just stands there, and watches me, and I know if I move or open my eyes he’ll do—something—and I can’t—That’s all. Nothing ever happens, not really.” James glances down, again. As if he’s embarrassed, now, trying to hide the confession under a cloak of deprecation.

“It’s stupid, I know. Not even a proper nightmare. I only thought—maybe if you still wanted to know—but it’s not anything that should—”

“James,” Michael whispers, interrupting that rapid-fire self-dismissal, once he can talk, once he can get words past the image of James lying still and terrified in bed while a faceless stranger stands over him, “I do want to know. I want to—And it _is_ a real nightmare, you’re wrong, that’s fucking horrific, James, is that—are you—did anyone ever—”

“—hurt me? No. At least, not that I can remember. And I think I would remember; not the sort of thing you’d forget, is it?”

Maybe. Sometimes. Repression. Trauma. Fear. But he doesn’t say those words out loud. Not when James looks so brittle, so brave, in the sunlight.

What he does say is, “Thank you.”

“What? Why?”

“For…telling me. For trusting me. With this. With you. You—I’m fucking honored, James.”

“Well,” James says, with a sound that’s a lot like a laugh, a momentary release of brightness into the air. “You were in there dying for me. And I—that was why I left. I couldn’t—I couldn’t watch you do that. Not for me.”

“Why not, for you?” They’re very close to each other. Those blue eyes look up into his, and the pavement’s scorching under their feet, waves of shimmering air like heat he can taste, and the world is very clear-cut and defined, white buildings and pale pavement and scattered clouds scurrying discreetly out of sight.

“Why not—” James looks a bit surprised, now. As if no one’s ever asked him that question before. “I—because I’m not—I wouldn’t ask you for that, I’m not worth—”

“If you’re about to say you’re not worth that,” Michael informs him, “I’m going to have to tell you you’re wrong.”

“But I—you don’t want—”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then maybe you can let me decide what I want,” Michael says, and kisses him.

James, clearly astonished, opens his mouth to protest; Michael, thinking fleetingly about averted eyes and nightmares, stops, but leaves his hand tangled in James’s hair, their foreheads touching. “Is this—all right? For you? Can I kiss you?”

And James closes his mouth again, blinks, and admits, “I didn’t expect you to stop and ask…”

“I will. If you want that. If you aren’t sure. I would like to kiss you—I like kissing you—but not if you don’t want to. All right?”

James blinks again, eyelashes sweeping like stormclouds over the blue, then lifting away. “Michael…I like you kissing me. I like being kissed by you. I do want to. I mean that.”

“Thank god,” Michael says, “thank you,” and brings their lips back together, gently, under the sweet gold fall of the sun.

This time James opens his mouth again, but it’s to kiss back, not to pull away. A welcome. A laugh, even, quick and soft and wondering; and Michael follows that sound, enchanted, into the corners of those happy lips, inviting curves, delectable hints of chapstick and coconut from that morning’s coffee. Explores every inch of tantalizing skin, and it is exploration, because maybe he’s kissed James before but he’s never kissed James like this, so unguarded, so unconditional, so full of joy.

James says, in the pause while they both recapture breath and gaze at each other, one of Michael’s hands still curled possessively around the back of his neck, “I love you, you know.”

“I love you, too. I always have, I think. I should’ve told you sooner.”

“I might not’ve listened, then. Too—scared, maybe. Afraid it wouldn’t be real. I don’t know. But this…you, here, holding me like this…I think…I’d like to listen now. If you say it again.”

“James McAvoy, I love you.” Michael lifts his hand, strokes it through all the irrepressible curls. They leap upward again, merrily defiant, in the wake of his fingers. “I can say it as many times as you’d like. Or as often as you need. Or just whenever you want me to. All right?”

“Oh, god,” James says, a little helplessly, “I love you. And yes.”

“Yes to which part? The words, or me playing with your hair? You seem to like that…”

“To both.” James leans into his arms, instead of the wall. Puts his head on Michael’s shoulder. Smiles; Michael can feel the movement of lips, and then James, evidently deciding that’s not enough, kisses his collarbone, through his shirt. “To everything.”

“About listening…” Michael holds him more tightly. Secure. He’s not letting James go. Not ever again. “You can always tell me if you’re scared. Or any time you have a nightmare. I want you to tell me. Because I want to be there, for you. With you. My choice. I love you.”

“Please sleep with me,” James says, into Michael’s shoulder.

“Um…right now?”

And James laughs again. Perfect. “I didn’t mean…or, I suppose I did, I like having sex with you, too…but I honestly meant just…sleep with me, maybe? At night? So I can tell you, if—so I know you’re there.”

“Of course,” Michael agrees, once he can find words. “Of course. And…of course at night, James, that’s when most people sleep, you know that, right…?” Which earns him another kiss, brilliant and amused and a little damp, so he touches the closest cheek, after, brushing away the suggestions of tears.

“Not if we’re doing night shoots,” James observes, voice only barely uneven, and tips that head more closely into his hand. “Then we get to sleep during the day.”

“True. All right, you win. For now. James?”

“Hmm? Also…for now?”

“I might have plans for you. You did say other words. About the sex. About you wanting the—”

“Yes, please.”

“Absolutely yes, then. But I was going to say…you were right. About Erik and Charles and the script. I think we need one more scene, don’t you?”

“A happy ending?”

“A happy ending,” Michael echoes, suddenly losing all his words in delight, because of the way James is looking up at him, because of the way those words sound in that voice, in his ears. “Yes. Or no. A beginning. A future. Together.”

“Yes,” James says, one more time, and smiles.

 

 

_every day, it’s a-gettin’ closer_

_goin’ faster than a roller coaster_

_love like yours will surely come my way_

_hey, hey…_

_love like yours_

_will surely come my way_


End file.
